So while we were in Hampton Beach, Deb Foster e-mailed a photo of Fate devouring some Saltine crackers she snitched off of a different counter. Now she has raided all three. When I got home, I countered by setting mousetraps laced with peanut butter and  crackers in them as a trap.

Fate has watched me carefully as I set the traps. She is like a raptor in the Spielberg movies, she is a clever girl.  I went into my office to blog and she had two hours to go after the traps and the food – I waited for the snap. Nothing. Maria laughed at me. “She will never go near those mousetraps,” she said, “she watched you putting them in. She knows.”

It’s true, but then a bulb went off in my head. If she wouldn’t go near the mousetraps, why not just leave a trap or two on the counter until she gets out of the habit of checking the counter for food?  Dogs live by habits and traditions, the way to re-train them is often to establish a new tradition.

If she can’t get food off of the counter for a month or two, she’ll find some other way to torment me.

So I left the mousetrap on the counter  yesterday evening and all night and all kinds of food behind it. This morning when I looked, Fate was studying the counter like a Biblical scholar studying old texts. She did not approach it, and the food was not touched.

She was trying to figure it out. She was stumped.

I might have stumbled into an approach that works, no fault of my own. She seemed to have outsmarted me by staying away from the mousetraps, perhaps she has outsmarted herself. One can always hope.

Tonight, organic low-fat beef from Vermont. I have Worcestershire sauce as well. We shall see. Tomorrow, I hope to post my first victory in the hamburger wars.